San Jose -- The Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department last night arrested the parents of an 8- year-old San Jose girl who was left behind at a gas station in Artesia yesterday morning.

Sergeant Ron Melton of the Lakewood sheriff's station said Michael Miller and Sylvia Nickolas were arrested on child abandonment and abuse charges after relatives saw the girl on television and informed deputies of the parents' whereabouts.

The girl told sheriff's deputies that her parents were driving a dark blue station wagon on the way back to San Jose after a visit to Southern California when they stopped at the service station at about 10 a.m. "While her dad was gassing up the car, (the girl) got out to go to the rest room, and her mom must have fallen asleep and didn't notice," sheriff's Lieutenant Louis Diot said.

The girl did not know her address or phone number, Diot said. She did know that she lives somewhere in San Jose.